Sharingan Sunrise
by Lutralutra
Summary: The light and the gold, the blending into darkness, the last stunning flash, then the fading into nothing. Uchiha Itachi never thought about his life as a sunrise before...[Oneshot]


Disclaimer: Naruto doesn't belong to me, and I receive no profit from this bit of writing, except my own pleasure and (please?) your reviews.

This is a random, spur-of-the-moment oneshot I wrote one evening. At the moment I'm really into Uchiha Itachi and exploring all sides of him, so that's probably how it was born. And, just a note, this fic is not intended as yaoi between Itachi and Tobi. They are just fellow Akatsuki members, nothing more. Well, enjoy the randomness!

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**Sharingan Sunrise**

**by LutraShinobi**

Tobi never woke up without being called, whatever form the call took. It could be Deidara-sempai thrashing him with a pillow, it could be one of his other fellow Akatsuki members opening the door a crack to shout, "Wake up, you idiots!" But Tobi never woke up on his own, or at least it hadn't happened yet. He'd been born without that internal alarm clock that most people seemed to have.

That was why, this morning, he wondered where the call had come from.

Deidara-sempai was snoring softly on the bed next to Tobi's, his long blond hair splayed out below his head, the mattress underneath him severely rumpled and most of his blankets lying in a tangle on the floor. Deidara was a restless sleeper. The door was firmly shut - no familiar face peering in.

Thinking that someone might have shouted for him from outside, Tobi threw aside the curtain and pulled up the window. It was then, blinking heavily at nature's brightness, that he saw something breathtaking. It was the most beautiful thing Tobi could ever have imagined.

Far away on the horizon, it looked to Tobi as if Heaven was finally opening itself to mankind. A golden sphere was releasing rays of yellow, orange, pink, every single colour there was, it seemed, and they all sparkled in the air. It was like an explosion - a very slow, very lovely explosion. And as the rays came into contact with the sky, they left streaks, until it was like staring at a huge rainbow whose colours merged together, blending until you could almost define one solid, perfect tint, but you never _really _could, because there were so many glorious layers underneath.

It was exquisite, so stunning, that Tobi knew it couldn't be meant for his eyes alone. Someone else had to see it, had to appreciate it, had to feel its radiance like Tobi did. But who? Tobi reluctantly tore his gaze from the striking picture to spot the slumbering Deidara. _But...no, Deidara-sempai is a wonderful artist, but this isn't his type of art. _If not his beloved teacher, who, then? Tobi deeply admired all of his fellow Akatsuki members, but if they had one fault, it was their inability to recognize the value of beauty. Tobi knew in a way he seldom knew anything that this incredible sight was not meant for him. He could look at it and wonder, of course, but it was not _for _him.

Then he thought...but the person he was picturing seemed the least likely of any to grasp the significance of this magnificence. Oh well, for once he would trust his instincts, however screwed-up Deidara-sempai might say they were. He opened the door very, very slowly so as not to wake Deidara with its rusty creak, and slipped out into the hallway. A couple of rooms down, he carefully pushed another door, swinging it inwards. "Itachi-san?"

Uchiha Itachi, one of Akatsuki's highest-ranking, most experienced agents, had sprung into readiness the moment Tobi had started to open the door. He stood, tall and tensed, at the side of his bed, fingering a kunai almost casually. "Tobi," Itachi acknowledged, but although he replaced the blade in its holster, his body didn't relax. _Does it ever? _Tobi thought. Although Itachi was clothed in what Tobi assumed to be pyjamas, a snug, grey short-sleeved top (decorated with white moons and stars) with thin black pants (yellow-striped) cut off below the knee, his sleek dark hair appeared unruffled as it cascaded around his head, and his bed was perfectly made. Had he gone to sleep at all?

"Itachi-san, I want to show you something," Tobi whispered, beckoning the older shinobi. Itachi, face effortlessly blank but eyes wary, followed silently as Tobi led him through the hall, down the stairs and outside into the early morning.

"The sky, Itachi-san," Tobi said, still whispering even though there was no longer any danger of waking the others. Itachi angled his emotionless countenance upwards, and stared into the beautiful image.

"Sunrise," he stated emptily. It was a nice-sounding word, but in Tobi's opinion, completely inadequate for describing something like _this. _He snuck a glance at Itachi and saw that he had activated his famous Sharingan, for what reason Tobi didn't know.

As he looked from Itachi's red eyes to the horizon, Tobi couldn't help but exclaim, "Itachi-san! Your eyes are the same colour as the sky!" It was true. The light, lovely golden colour of the sphere had deepened into a dark crimson closely resembling Itachi's Sharingan in some spots, and the red shade blended itself into the rest of the mix, giving it a murky aura.

Itachi made a quiet sound, as if he'd inhaled or exhaled too quickly. "A Sharingan sunrise," he murmured.

By now the sun was getting quite high, and for a brief period of time Tobi and Itachi's view of the dawn was obscured by a glittering mist of light dazzling them and blotting everything else out. When they could see again, day had broken, and their surroundings were several shades brighter than they had been a moment ago. Pools of sunshine danced over the grass, rocks and trees, and Tobi felt a slight, but very intense, warmth spread through him. Beside him, Itachi's muscles relaxed.

"What does the sunrise make you think of, Itachi-san?" Tobi asked, sounding like an eager child.

Itachi's eyes followed a speck of sunlight as it travelled rapidly across the ground before him. Their shadowy red tinge faded into the customary black. After the sun speck vanished from existence, he stared at the place it had last touched. He remained that way, head bowed, for such a long time that Tobi thought he wasn't going to answer the question. Then Itachi spoke tonelessly. "My life."

"Your life is like a sunrise?" Tobi said, surprised.

"Speaking metaphorically, it could be expressed in such terms," Itachi replied. The light and the gold at the beginning of a sunrise, promising wonderful things. Then the darkening, the red taking over the gold - Sharingan red. One last stunning flash before the sunrise faded. The light and gold in his life had come and gone, Itachi knew. The red - well, that seemed to be what he was living right now. As for the stunning finale, he wasn't sure if it had happened yet or not. Perhaps there was more than one flash in some lives.

"That's a beautiful metaphor, Itachi-san," Tobi breathed.

"However hard it tries, the metaphor cannot be the real thing," Itachi said flatly. He didn't know why he was so set on stamping out all of Tobi's poetic urges. But they were false, and Itachi hated lies.

Even though the sunrise was long over, the two men continued to stand there in each other's company. It was kind of comfortable, there in the sun, side by side.

"Itachi-san?" Tobi said tentatively, after a while. Itachi gave a tiny nod to show he was listening. "You're wise, I think," Tobi said honestly.

"I don't," Itachi replied simply.

"Why not?" Tobi wanted to know. He thought Itachi was awfully hard on himself.

"Wise men do not waste their time watching sunrises," was Itachi's cold, staunch answer.

"But sunrise is the start of a new day, Itachi-san!" Tobi protested vehemently. "There's nothing wrong with wanting to be present for the beginning!" Itachi turned his head to look at Tobi. His cold, unrevealing black eyes seemed to appraise the smaller shinobi. "Tobi..." he began.

"Yes, Itachi-san?"

"...you are unfit for the life of a criminal."

Tobi looked hurt for a moment, until he thought about it and realized Itachi was probably paying him some sort of twisted compliment. Then he just shrugged cheerfully and said, "Maybe so. But I chose it anyway."

"Why?" It was strange to hear a question posed so robotically.

"Well..." Tobi frowned as he struggled to think of a plausible answer, then he brightened. "If I wasn't part of Akatsuki, I wouldn't be able to watch daybreak from here like this!"

Itachi blinked, then straightened and took his gaze off Tobi. "So, the sunrise is worth all the plundering, murdering and stealing?"

"I guess so, yeah," Tobi said thoughtfully. "I mean, these things balance themselves out, don't they? Beauty versus ugliness? Good versus evil? Sunrise versus Akatsuki? Hmm, wonder what it'd be like if we tried to fight a battle against the sunrise..."

"The sunrise would win, I suspect," Itachi said. His eyes crinkled a little, the only sign that he was amused. "My Mangekyou Sharingan is useless against the dawn."

"We'd put up a good fight, though," Tobi hastened to say, so as not to discredit the organization he revered. "And then we'd get our butts kicked."

Itachi shifted almost imperceptibly. He felt that this conversation was getting extremely off topic - not that it had ever had a topic to begin with. There was something about Tobi that always made him wonder what on Earth he was talking about. "We should go inside, Tobi," he said finally. "The others will be waking up now."

The two parted ways in front of Itachi's bedroom door. "Thank you...for showing me the sunrise, Tobi," Itachi said formally. Tobi beamed.

"It was my pleasure, Itachi-san! In fact, it would be _awesome _to do this again! Same time tomorrow, okay?" Before Itachi could even open his mouth, Tobi was down the hall and slipping into his own room, from which Deidara could be heard cussing after stubbing his toe.

Itachi, eyebrows raised slightly, stared hard at Tobi's door, now closed, before entering his own room. Itachi's partner Kisame was sitting on his bed, waiting. He grinned in a shark-like manner and commented, "Nice PJ's, Itachi. Where've you been?"

"Outside," Itachi replied shortly. To describe him as a man of few words was the understatement of the century, and no one knew that better (or took more pride in it) than he did himself.

"What's so amazing outside?" Kisame twisted his body to peer curiously out the window.

Kisame was astounded to see something almost like a very small, very brief smile flit across Itachi's poker face. "Sharingan sunrise," he said.

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Well, there it is. Lol, Tobi's so wide-eyed and innocent - he always makes me smile. Reading it over, it seems to me as if Itachi was a bit (scratch that, a _lot_) out of character. Well, anyway, I definitely hope you liked it, and please, please, with a cherry on top, leave a review to tell me how you think I did. Thanks:) :) 


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